Staff/Contact Us

Michael Diamond
Director, Harrison Institute for Housing and Community Development, diamondm@law.georgetown.edu
BA, Syracuse University
JD, Fordham University
LLM, New York University

Michael Diamond is Professor of Law at Georgetown Law where he is the Director of Georgetown's Harrison Institute for Housing and Community Development and directs its Housing and Community Development Clinic. He also teaches Corporations and Property. Professor Diamond taught at American University's Washington College of Law and at Antioch University School of Law and visited at several Law Schools. He has taught Contracts, Business Associations, Property, Administrative Law, and seminars in Housing, Economic Development and Sociology of Law. Professor Diamond has been of counsel to the law firms of Goldfarb & Singer and O'Toole, Rothwell, Nassau, and Steinbach and a consultant to the ABA's Central and Eastern European Law Initiative on proposed housing laws in Russia and Bosnia, and to the Agency for International Development. He consulted with the District of Columbia Law Revision Commission and several advisory commissions on housing policy. His books include: Corporations: A Contemporary Approach, 2d Ed. Carolina Academic Press (2004), and How to Incorporate; A Guide for Entrepreneurs and Professionals, 5th Ed. John Wiley and Sons (2007). His recent articles include: Community Lawyering: Revisiting the Old Neighborhood, Columbia Human Rights Law Review (2000); Leaders, Followers and Free Riders: The Community Lawyer's Dilemma when Representing Non-Democratic Client Organizations, Fordham Urban Law Journal (2004, with O'Toole); Community Economic Development: A Reflection on Community, Power and the Law, The Journal of Small and Emerging Business Law (2004); Affordable Housing, Land Tenure and Urban Policy: The Matrix Revealed, Fordham Urban Law Journal (with Byrne). Professor Diamond gave the keynote address at a workshop entitled Affordable Housing and Public/Private Partnerships: The Intersection of Housing, Property, and Real Estate.at the University of Colorado Law School. He has recently presented papers at the University of Colorado Law School (on tenant participation in Low income Housing Tax Credit projects) and Chapman University Law School (on the cultural meaning of property).

Raquel C. Skinner is an adjunct professor and staff attorney with the Harrison Institute's Housing and Community Development Clinic at Georgetown University Law Center. As a staff attorney, she advises low-income tenant associations with respect to their purchase and renovation of multifamily housing and conversion of such housing into condominiums and cooperatives. In her adjunct role, she supervises work performed by clinical law students on these transactions and teaches in Georgetown Law's Housing and Community Development Seminar. Before joining the Harrison Institute, Ms. Skinner was an Associate General Counsel at Fannie Mae, where she provided transactional legal support to Fannie Mae's Multifamily Mortgage Business. Ms. Skinner's earlier experience includes several years with two major law firms where she represented borrowers and lenders in commercial real property transactions and worked on corporate and securities transactions.

Sczerina Perot is a public interest lawyer who has used advocacy, litigation, and coalition building to change systems that trap people in homelessness and poverty. Ms Perot's prior jobs include being a lawyer and community activist at the Washington Legal Clinic for the Homeless and an adjunct professor at Georgetown University Law School. From 2009 to 2014 she lived in London and worked as an advisor to clients at Zaccheus 2000 and the Citizens Advice Bureau. She enjoyed comparing UK and US policy approaches to housing, homelessness, and public benefits. Ms Perot has received recognition for her dedication to social change from Georgetown University Law School, the National Association of Public interest Law (now Equal Justice Works), the Bar Association of the District of Columbia and LIFT.In October of 2013 she gave a TEDx talk called "Housing Is a Human Right" which can be seen on YouTube: http://youtu.be/idJqpWbOPJk. Ms Perot is married to a fellow Georgetown University Law Center classmate, Gary DiBianco, and they have two children, Leah and Corey.

Michelle K. Foumbi
Business Manager, mkn29@law.georgetown.edu, 202-662-4232
BA, Pace University; Certificate in U.S. Law and Methodologies, New York University.

Michelle Foumbi is the business manager at the Harrison Institute for Public Law. She manages financial accounts, payroll, billing, and event planning, and she contributes to program development. Her past positions include marketing assistant at Hogan Lovells, volunteer leader at the White House, human resource assistant at Family Care International, and governance intern at the U.N. Development Program in Rwanda, paralegal for a NY law firm, and client representative for Sterling InfoSystems, Inc.

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Melanne Verveer, executive director of the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security and the first U.S. Ambassador for Global Women's Issues, speaks at the International Women’s Day Symposium March 24. http://bit.ly/1Nv57y5